A moment of forbidden pleasure

The man she loved was gentle, touching with care, barely hurting. Yet she screamed within, a howling of sorts.

The boy she befriended pulled her close, hugging her. Agony was all she left.

Her father kissed her forehead, all warmth and love. She flinched, a jolt of shock running down her spine.

Her brother curled up beside her, snoring contentedly. She sat rigid, petrified and ready to bolt.

They were oblivious, she was aware.

She was aware and eternally injured. Injured at all those places his hands had travelled. Injured at all those places he had grabbed, he had twisted, he had claimed to be his. The places he had believed were inane.

There was a time she had yearned for a touch, a touch that would sizzle the blood in her veins, a touch that would send shivers down her spine, a touch that would make her heart skip beats.

At the age of eleven, she got all she had yearned for. Again and again. The blood in her veins sizzled, shivers bolted down her spine and her heart skipped one too many beats.

At the age of twenty four, it still did. In her nightmares. Again and again.

The body he had claimed was inane enough to be trampled upon, had turned into a block of stone over time. Bits and pieces of it rotting away, spoilt and desolate. It was now shriveled and worn out, peeling off at the edges like a block of wooden piece in a land lost deep beneath the sea.

Not one, or two or three, but every other day did she wake up, shivering and lost, breathless and perspiring in the darkness. Her breathing ragged, her body shuddering and her mind turning into jelly. And she would fear closing her tired eyes again for how many times could one be touched when not asked for?

The nights were consumed by nightmares unasked for and the days by phobia the years of caging in had developed. She no longer ambled the streets with no care in the world, or explored anyplace with no being by her side. A simple look by a passing by stranger turned into a suspicion arising due to mistrust. During these moments, she wondered if the man who touched her eleven year old self blatantly in his thirst for forbidden pleasure ever regretted it. If he ever wanted to go back in time and undo it. If he ever, even for a single little second, felt guilt over what he had done.

His moment of forbidden pleasure had turned her life into a conglomeration of nightmares and mistrust. His moment of forbidden pleasure had turned her from a being capable of feeling to a being constantly fading into a distance. His moment of forbidden pleasure had turned every waking moment of her life into a battle, a battle to overcome the phobia and mistrust, an inner battle to win over the demons and let live.

All I ask is, was it worth it? Was that moment worth turning an eleven year old from a blooming flower to a withering one? Was it?